If you haven’t yet read or heard about Google’s rollout of changes as of late, let me inform you that one of them is Google Personalization.
What is that?
Well, it USED to be that IF you had a Google account and you were signed in to your Google account while you were using the Google search engine, the results that you got back were tailored to your history and your geo location.
But NOW you don’t have to have a Google account and you don’t have to be signed in to a Google account at all. ALL your searches on Google are being recorded and kept in a history just for you.
Let me explain how the personalized search thing works. Let’s say you previously searched for Pizza joints in the past a few times and you chose a particular pizza joint a few times, the next time you looked for a pizza joint, that particular one that you chose before pops up as the #1 result. Even if that particular pizza joint is ACTUALLY on page 20 of the search results, it doesn’t matter. Because YOUR web history shows that you liked this particular pizza joint, Google is giving you what it believes you like.
It’s Google Personalized to you!
Kinda sounds great – for users. Maybe, we’ll have to see. But for website owners and Internet marketers (like me) it’s uhhhh, not so great. SDInteractive says it best when they outlined the following…
“Below is a list of ways that Google personalization is changing search engine optimization today:
• Everybody now sees different Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) based on their searching patterns making measuring a consistent ranking no longer possible.
• Content development simply for increased page count and link building no longer has as much influence on your site’s rank.
• People who visit their own sites are getting the wrong impression that their sites are ranking well in the SERPs and are stopping SEO services.
Other ways that Google personalization are changing optimization are listed below:
• People who visit their competitor’s sites are getting the wrong impression that their sites AREN’T ranking well in the SERPs and are blaming their SEO company.
• Search spam is starting to get filtered out as people, by and large, do not revisit spammy pages.
• Fresh content is becoming essential for rankings, as new pages stand out in someone’s personalized SERPs and are getting searchers to come back to your site. Social media content is now critical and is being done at increased levels.”
What does Google Personalization Mean To Your SEO Campaign?
Well, for starters, it means you can’t avoid social media anymore. It also means that you absolutely have to pay attention to each individual page of your website, not just the overall website anymore.
If your SEO firm has been trying to get you to open (and use) a Facebook page or Twitter or even Blog and you’ve been resisting, well, 2010 is the year you will have to give in and cry uncle. There’s no doubt that the fresh content provided through social media will only enhance your Internet marketing campaign.
Let me explain how.
In the past, SEO marketing success was based on the ranking the website reached. If it was #1 for a specific keyword phrase then the expectation was that the ranking brought in traffic and the campaign was a success. In the last few years, that has shifted from “being #1 for a keyword phrase” to “being #1 for a productive keyword phrase” – in other words, the keyword phrase had to bring in relevant traffic. The kind of traffic that converted into sales. That made sense.
But now, with Google personalization in full swing, the focus shifts. Since search results will be different for everyone, we can’t rely on that anymore. Instead, we have to now focus on other methods of getting traffic to the website and today, that means social media.
You will still get traffic from your rankings, after all, if there is no search history for “divorce attorney in florida“, then the natural search engine rankings will remain intact. But it will be less traffic than in the past. So, the game is now changed.
1) Increase traffic to your site via article marketing, social media and blogging.
2) Increase website usability to encouraging your site to be shared or bookmarked.
3) Stop fighting with your SEO firm – after all, if you don’t win, they don’t win.
